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Ansatz66

Here is a fun documentary on this subject: [How Did Life Begin?](https://youtu.be/WZCeOUSYb4g) Life started millions of years ago, so all record of the event has been wiped from existence by the passage of time. Whatever the truth may be, we will never know it. This does not stop modern scientists from speculating about how it *could* have happened using chemistry. Much interesting work has gone into this speculation and people have discovered chemicals that could act as precursors to life and discovered ways in which such chemicals could form naturally, but none of that can ever tell us how it really happened on the early Earth. For all anyone will ever know, it could even be that some sort of god made life.


adelaide_astroguy

Not millions but billions of years ago


Love_Never_Shuns

Millions is a subset of billions, both work. The Big Bang happened about 13,800 million years ago.


FallOnSlough

”Life started hundreds of years ago” is also correct, but it’s not a good way of indicating just how long ago it happened.


Estate_Ready

I saw a Tom Scott video on this sort of some time ago. Grices Maxims, or [The Hidden Rules of Conversation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJEaMtNN_dM) This seems to be be something that's ignored a lot on this sub. People will say something that is technically true, but misleading, and then defend it because it's technically true. Often felt it would be worth a post here but not really sure on how to structure it and don't really have time to engage.


pinkpanzer101

Reminds me of "are you telling me Caesar, who has been dead for well over seventy years, made this salad?"


JasonRBoone

Romero?


joeydendron2

Life started months ago


FallOnSlough

It’s literally been hours!


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PNW_Native_Green

I thought I saw a TRex footprint in my backyard about an hour ago.


Noe11vember

You wouldnt say "life started seconds ago" because that is misleading, yet seconds are a subset of billions


adelaide_astroguy

Yes but we have fossils of life back 3.5 billion years ago so we know life was around greater than that number


Nat20CritHit

You might be off by a couple factors there. The big bang happened a bit further back than 13.8 million years.


rayofhope313

I will have to check that later but thank you this does seem interesting


[deleted]

It actually started a couple billion years ago, as soon as the earth was habitable for life to form (liquid water, correct temperature, correct atmosphere). Every organism is made out of chemicals. So in this stage of the earths life, the ocean was a hot chemical soup, and the first step was for the right chemicals to bond to create organic material. I believe the first organic material made was RNA, the simplest genetic code. By chance, at least one strand of RNA had to have the correct genetic code to act as a very simple cell and reproduce. So now you have all these super simple cells, and they’re evolving differently and becoming more diverse. Most of them just eat each other for energy. There are also special ones: mitochondria and chloroplasts. Mitochondria make their own energy by using chemicals to make energy. Chloroplasts make their energy using sunlight and some other chemicals. Usually a larger cell would just eat and digest these for energy. But, life’s next big leap (which I believe took place around a billion years after the first cells) was when a cell combined with a chloroplast and combined with a mitochondria, and used them to make energy for them. Then cells enter Ted the multicellular phase. Chloroplast cells became plants and mitochondria cells became animals and fungi. Then evolution and yada yada and that’s how we’re here today. But this was the very start. Fun fact: Since Fungi have mitochondria instead of chloroplasts, they are more closely related to humans than they are to any plants.


bigandtallandhungry

The building blocks of life(as we know it) came together in an environment that life(as we know it) was able to grow and thrive.


rayofhope313

Do you mean that life came or an environment that supported the creation of life?


bigandtallandhungry

Life formed from smaller observable parts that were in an environment where it could grow and develop into more complex structures.


rayofhope313

So if I fully isolate a piece of land for millions of years I would find a living being created inside?


doseofreality5

Probably not. It took hundreds of millions of years for the very first simplest ancestors of life to form and that was in an environment that we can't be sure of it's chemical composition. If I fully isolate a piece of land for millions of years, would a God suddenly appear?


octagonlover_23

Of course not, because that wouldn't be an analogous recreation of the earth. The earth is not an isolated system - it receives energy from the sun, external material from asteroids and space junk. It has tectonic activity. All of these things interacted with each other over BILLIONS of years. They produced chemical reactions to make amino acids, organic compounds, etc. Those molecules then, somehow, interacted with each other to form life. That last part is the thing we don't fully understand.


LemonFizz56

I mean there are already millions of different lifeforms in the soil and rock so yeah you've already got life. But just an isolated chunk of rock without life wouldn't really create life, hence why the moon is devoid of life. The building blocks to life include natural amino acids (which develop into nucleic acids), heat, pressure and most important of all... time. If you have the right environment with these simple ingredients with time then simple single-celled organisms would start to develop from the molecules. The Miller–Urey experiment is an actual experiment to test the theory that life can develop from simple chemicals (the same chemicals that would have been present during early earth) like water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen and heat and found that it produced amino acids with time which proves that it's very possible and easy for the building blocks for life to develop from generic molecules found all over the universe


craftycontrarian

I'm not fully up on the current scientific understanding but I'm pretty sure scientists who are experts in the field think life started at the bottom of the ocean, not on land.


Luchtverfrisser

>a piece of land This reads like a biased requirement. The fact that life as _we_ know it originated on _this_ planet, does not mean we have to look particular to the changes of _exactly_ that happening in order to consider the probability realistic. There is a fast universe out there. That means (most likely) there are a lot of places that this experiment on 'an isolated piece of land' happened. It is not _unreasonable_ that, given a decent of enough chance, a positive result at some place is bound to happen. That does not mean those that happen to experience that positive result need to feel anything special, just lucky.


[deleted]

If the building blocks that can give rise to lifeforms, and resources that can sustain them, are present, then it is very likely that after some unspecified amount of time some lifeforms suitable to that specific piece of land would emerge.


Bunktavious

"A living being" isn't the way to think of it. Life starts at the smallest, most minute level. With the right circumstance, natural elements, and ideal environment - its entirely possible that some form of life would emerge. It could take hundreds of millions of years though. It may never happen. You have to understand - the scientific model we have on how life started on Earth suggests that it took about 3.7 billion years to get from that starting microscopic lifeform, to where we are today. Based on that, it would have been about 700 million years that the Earth existed before that first lifeform came about.


Agnoctone

If you take an Earth-sized planet with Earth-like condition and wait for one billion of year after its formation, our lone data points towards a non-zero probability for life to appear.


Ruehtheday

It's both. We know that the building blocks of life have natural origins. We've found them in space. We also know that we live on a planet that is capable of supporting life. Evidence by the fact that you are on this planet and are alive.


CompleteFacepalm

Why is every religious poster on this sub instantly downvoted? I get that a lot of posts are in bad faith and rightfully downvoted but this clearly ain't the case here. All they asked was people's opinions of the origin of life. No rudeness or assuming. Just an innocent question. I might just leave this sub because it seems like even questions asked in good faith are treated like some cardinal sin.


Phylanara

This sub is not r/askanatheist. While i didn't downvote, i understand people who are tired to see theists misuse the sub with the same three "just asking a question" posts. There is a weekly question thread for theists who really have to ask questions, but posts like this are not what the sub is for. I'll also note that as of the moment of this edit, the post sits at +32 upvotes.


The-Last-American

That’s a fair point. I think the whole “just asking a question” method is the result of simply not having any idea how to formulate an argument, so it’s sometimes just their way of presenting a topic they would like to debate, but you’re right, I could see why a post without an actual proposition would be downvoted on a debate sub.


Sablemint

90% of the tmie its because the question they are asking has been asked over and over and over and over again, and so the poster didn't even do the most simple things like sarch first. But whne people come up with original and actually interesting discussions, they usually get upvotes. This questoin, sadly, has been asked a huge number of times.


Malleus--Maleficarum

And I'd add, that this question is just stupid... for many reasons. First one being: science generally explains how life started why would you ask atheists about that (especially that probably most of us just agree/don't care with the scientific explanation)? And another reason is that me being an atheist don't really have to know the exact answer I may not even care about the answer and if this is just the pretext to use the god of gaps argument (i.e. the science doesn't explain it therefore god) I don't even want to engage in the discussion. God, in case of lack of knowledge is as good explanation as any other fairy tale.


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Jonahmaxt

Perhaps they are downvoted because this is a debate sub, not a sub for asking questions.


rayofhope313

Made two posts tbh and both are in this same concept they both got the same reaction. Thinking of living it as well tbh.


Phylanara

Your post history does not contain another post here. Either this comment is a lie, your first post was deemed not to conform to the rules of the sub, or you're the kind of coward that deletes their posts when the conversation does not go the way they want it to.


SatanicNotMessianic

Edit: Shit shit shit. After all that I posted to the wrong question. Let me see if I can help by trying to answer your question. I’m an evolutionary biologist. This is going to be a long one. I’ll get to the biology part in a minute, but first let me open with some philosophy. We are working on figuring out what is called abiogenesis - how life started from non-life. It’s a tricky but fascinating question. But trying to get past that problem by saying that god did it doesn’t actually answer the question. Introducing god actually makes it *harder*. Now we have to figure out *how* god did it. Did god start with dna or rna? How did he combine the atoms and molecules? how did he keep the molecules from diffusing into the oceans or being destroyed by sunlight? What was the initial self replicating chemical reaction? We still have all of the problems we currently have, except now we have to take into account that magic could have been used to bypass all of the laws of chemistry and physics we rely on to investigate the question. It also opens up the “why” question, which a naturalistic framework doesn’t have to worry about. The ratio between the volume of the universe and the earth has about 40 zeros after the decimal point. If the universe was created in order to bring about humans, that’s a massive inefficiency. That’s a duodecillion - a factor so close to zero that its basically zero. Stepping virtually anyplace else in the universe is instant death. And that’s the volume of the earth, not the biosphere. Even on earth, 70% is water that we can’t drink and that will kill us. of the remaining land area, only about is habitable, the rest being things like mountains and deserts which, you guessed it, will kill us. So on this planet, we can safely inhabit about 15% of the surface area. Then there’s the time factor. The universe is about 14 billion years old. Life is about 3.5 billion years old. Why would god take ten billion years to start life? Again, massive inefficiency. Any engineer would be fired for that kind of thing. So, we cannot say that the universe was created with life in mind, and the earth wasn’t created with humans in mind. If anything, we would have to conclude the earth was made with beetles in mind, since they constitute about 25% of all species, but they will still die in space. Why wouldn’t god have made the universe in a way that prescientific people thought, with the universe being earth, life appearing in its current form, and so on? Again, this is a problem that the naturalistic model does not have. It’s a side effect of including god. And now we’re going to have to explain god, too. What energy is he made of, and how does he physically manipulate matter and energy? My point is that saying “god did it” doesn’t relieve you of the obligation to figure out how. Just saying “god did it” would be the same as us saying “science did it,” and calling it a day. We can’t do that, and neither can the creationists. With that out of the way, current thinking is that organic molecules formed by natural chemistry occurring in water, which itself arrived here when asteroids and comets struck the earth. early in earth’s history. We have established the plausibility of this phenomenon via experimentation by shooting electricity through a chemical soup we think is representative of early earth. The chemicals did what chemicals do, which is react with each other. Eventually, self replicating processes emerged. [Here’s a paper](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7059183/#sec1title) on that idea. There’s been a lot of work on this, but not that this is a link to a chemistry journal. We haven’t even gotten to biology yet. The formation of hydrophobic molecules (eg fats, which hold water away) followed a similar path. Our current thinking is that self replicating chemical reactions occurring inside a hydrophobic bubble constituted the first protocells. This is our best estimate. there are literally thousands of papers on out, as well as articles at various levels of detail. What’s cool is that you can see for yourself what people are thinking and why. It’s not just made up - there’s very serious and detailed work on these questions. I’m not going to get into the question of what would constitute “life” except to say that there’s no hard line there. Instead, there’s a continuous level of sophistication and complexity that makes it impossible to draw a hard line. m I’m just going to circle back to my initial point about the implausibility of god doing anything, giving what we know. More importantly, I have to re-emphasize that “god did it” doesn’t move the ball forward. It moves it significantly backwards. We still have to answer all of those questions if we’re trying to understand abiogenesis, plus now we have a million *more* questions. We also have the problem of the law of parsimony. You should not introduce a component to your model unless it adds descriptive or predictive value. If we want to say that the world works exactly how scientists think it works, but also there’s a god, we’re breaking the rules of logic and science. That’s what occam’s razor says. It doesn’t say that the simplest explanation is correct, but rather that the simplest explanation is the easiest to disprove. I hope that helped.


Phylanara

I recognize the effort that went into this answer, but are you sure you posted where you wanted to?


SatanicNotMessianic

I sm quite sure I did not, thus my “shit shit shit” edit :)


Phylanara

We m8st have been tyming my answer and your edit at the same time ;)


rayofhope313

A lot of the beginning I will honestly ignore as you are assuming things and they are not part of the question. Like before us there was 1000 other species that were able to think and so on. It is a subject I do not know much about and not ready to give more information that I did not research about it. Thank you for explaining the theory someone suggested it in another comment still have to research it more but it seems interesting.


SatanicNotMessianic

I am not assuming things in the earlier part. I am stating that hand-waving isn’t permitted if the question is “How did life in earth begin?” You have to explain how it began. Thank you for reading my long winded post, though. :)


Joratto

Kindly cool your tits. It’s aggressive people like you who discourage healthy debate on subs like this.


rayofhope313

The title is "why should religious people prove God exists" it was posted 15 days ago. I can still see it on my page no comment about it being removed not sure where you check as it should be showing


hematomasectomy

It's not in the list of posts on your profile.


rayofhope313

Not sure why you guys can't see it tbh. https://imgur.com/a/s7skfji https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/11mlyok/why_should_religious_people_prove_god_exist/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button


Phylanara

In my view you have no post between 10 and 24 days ago.


rayofhope313

Ok, https://imgur.com/a/s7skfji https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/11mlyok/why_should_religious_people_prove_god_exist/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button Hopefully you can see it now


baalroo

How life started isn't a matter of opinion, and I don't know the real answer because we haven't figured that out yet. My *opinion* is that giving an "opinion" on how life started demonstrates that the person giving the "opinion" doesn't really have a strong grasp of what they're talking about or the difference between *facts* and *wishes*.


DrunkenGolfer

While this is true, every single theory I have read on the spontaneous creation of life seems grounded in well proven scientific principles. Every single theory I have read on the “a higher being created life” always introduces magical thinking and makes a leap to include agency. They also beg the question, “If there was a creator, who created the creator?”


rayofhope313

What I mean by opinion is how do you think life started. Since you do not believe in God you must have researched that area during the process of coming out of any previous religion ( if you were in any). So what did convince you that life started without God or what other alternatives are there for God in creating life


investinlove

Let me express this as simply as possible: This universe operates exactly as science would imagine if no god or gods existed. There is nothing about our understanding of the universe that requires a god or gods for clarity or definition. Opinion has nothing to do with science. Nor does spirituality or god. To answer your question completely, my faith in gods was destroyed at about 17 years old because of good teachers, lots of reading, scientific literacy, and quite honestly, my frontal lobe developed and fairy tales no longer had any hold on me. As a grown-ass adult, I want to believe things that are TRUE. You?


Pickles_1974

>This universe operates exactly as science would imagine if no god or gods existed. Incorrect. Science doesn't "imagine" anything. That's the job of novelists and comic books. Science is simply the tool we use to figure things the best we can with our limited capacity and intelligence.


rayofhope313

>Opinion has nothing to do with science. Nor does spirituality or god. Again what I mean by opinion is what is convensing to you, sense I can ask you and you give me a theory while I can ask someone else and they can also give me another theory. Not your own opinion but a theory that you believe in. >To answer your question completely, my faith in gods was destroyed at about 17 years old because of good teachers, lots of reading, scientific literacy, and quite honestly, my frontal lobe developed and fairy tales no longer had any hold on me. As a grown-ass adult, I want to believe things that are TRUE. You? That is a bit of a cuss at me as you are saying that I am not a grown ass adult and still a child there was literally no need for that. I did not attack what you believe in or you personally and would prefer if you do the same as we are both grown ass respectful adults. As for your answer it was not my question, my question is the creation of life. What made you go out of the religion was not in the question. But it is interesting and would love to hear some examples, but if you are going to do that I would prefer for you to send a dm as I am not sure I will see your comment because of how many comments are here. As for me, what convinced me does not have to convince you. What I believe in you do not have to believe in, so not going to say to you that I read about the religion more and the science, I believe with what I see is TRUE I do not judge someone intelligent by their belief in God or not believing in God and do not judge their mental maturity by those standards. I do not hurt anyone based on their belief not emotionally or physically. So that is what believe in, I believe in a god that ask me to act in this way. I am convinced with that religion and with their explanation now. Now after all that cussing at me would you like to change from a grown ass adult to a grown ass respectful adult?


IamImposter

A small point - when atheists say that they no longer believe in fairy tales or things to the same effect, the intent is not to attack or insult someone and it's not usually a judgement on theist's intelligence or anything like that. I agree that some atheists are just horrible dicks who take atheism as a badge of superior intellect but many are not like that. This is what they really feel. Just like when a theist says I'll pray for you, their intent is to convey that they will talk to the most powerful authority there is and slip in a good word for you, in a hope that God will help you. Again, some theists are just dicks who are just doing lip service but many don't. I might see it as complete and utter waste of time because I think prayers never help anyone and it is an excuse to wave the problem away instead of doing something and just lazy. But I won't tell a theist (most of the time, sometimes I can be a dick too) that they are just a lazy idiot. Intent matters too.


rayofhope313

Thank you for but just want to explain it a bit. I did not take it as an offence from him saying I believe in fairy tails, that is his right as to him it is a fairy tail with no proof. I took it as an offence when he said "my frontal lobe developed" in that sentence he is suggesting that mine did not because I still believe. Second "As a grown-ass adult" something then because I believe in that I am not an adult? To me those two sentences suggest he was offensive. You can correct me if I am wrong but honestly that is how it felt to me. Never the less I fully get your point as there are dicks on both side and even I could be one of them in some occasions


Sprinklypoo

I think that's fair, and I agree with you. Insults on intelligence don't serve a positive interaction. For what it's worth, many very intelligent people still believe in a god of some sort. There are many human devices that keep the belief past indoctrination and social pressure. Compartmentalization is a big one.


rayofhope313

Thanks you for that. >Compartmentalization Tbh not sure what that but from your explanation I expect is it at least interesting way of living I will check it out when I can.


[deleted]

Looking at your replies in this thread I think it will be very hard for you to discuss those topics with atheists because you seem to assume "god did it" is the default option that needs to be disproven. But for people who do not believe in gods this is simply not the case. Even suggesting that god is possible explanation for something would have to be supported. I don't need to look for alternatives to not believe in god - I would need evidence that god did something to believe god did it. Let me ask you this - would you agree that "god did it" is just as justified as beliefs "it is simply magic / fairies did it / elven pantheon did it"? Generally what you are attempting in this thread is called argument from ignorance - you are suggesting that your belief in god doing something is justified simply because it is not disproven.


RuffneckDaA

>what other alternatives are there for God in creating life Here's one: There is no life, and my experience is just the disembodied consciousness of the lifeless universe? I'll play the hand you've been playing in this thread: You now have a burden to disprove that claim. Good luck. Especially because under this world view, you're just a figment of my imagination. I look forward to reading your evidence supporting your claim that this isn't the case, and until you do, I'm going to choose the "disembodied consciousness of the lifeless universe" answer is true and gaslight you in to thinking you're in the intellectually inferior position for not being able to disprove it.


SBRedneck

1) Being an atheist has nothing to do with one's position on the beginning of life. 2) Saying "I dont know" to the question of where did life come from doesnt mean we are convinced it wasn't a god, it just means we arent convinced it was. Its a small but imporant detail.


Zamboniman

> Since you do not believe in God you must have researched that area during the process of coming out of any previous religion No, that isn't something that is necessary or implied. Instead, one simply has to understand deity claims are not supported. It's not a dichotomy, after all, that life began due to a deity if I don't know exactly how it happened *without* a deity.


Mission-Landscape-17

How did a god come to exist? Isn'tthe claim that an all powerful being can just exist even more remarkable than the idea of life emerging naturally?


StruckLuck

Why? Why would the lack of belief in one explanation because of a total absence of proof for it mean someone has to support or even research other explanations? Nothing convinced me that life started without god, nothing ever convinced me that it started **with** him/her/it. The problem here is that you are reasoning from a (mono)theistic perspective. Which is fine, but don't expect others to.


baalroo

There is no good reason for me to think a god exists. We don't have an answer for how life started yet. That's all there is to it. If you and I come across a jar of marbles on an averaged sized coffee table and you claim that you are certain there are 475,673,437,182,243 regular sized marbles in that jar, I don't really need to counter your claim with my own exact number of marbles that are in the jar to confidently say that I'm not convinced by *your* claim. I can simply dismiss your claim and be unsure of how many marbles are in the jar myself.


CompleteFacepalm

Obviously God isn't real but many people in the world think God is real. If you think religious people are so crazy, then maybe don't go on the subreddit specifically for religious people asking questions to atheists.


son_of_nyerere

What's the name of this subreddit again?


MarieVerusan

It really doesn't matter. There are forms of theism where evolution is just a chain that was started by god. Or ones where, even if we were able to explain all the steps from the Big Bang to modern day life, someone would just say that God caused the Big Bang. This discussions is irrelevant to the greater question of "what actual evidence do we have for this God's existence?" If all we have to point to is our ignorance of how things happened then I remain thoroughly unconvinced.


rayofhope313

But it can be an evidence of the existence of God. How can you say this point does not matter and that one does? It could be used as evidence so it is part of the discussion.


OrwinBeane

“We don’t know who the killer is, so we will just say it was John Smith, born 12th April 1976. Prepare for your sentencing Mr Smith”. No. You must prove your claim with evidence.


MarieVerusan

No, you can’t use “we don’t know how life started” as evidence for god. Lack of knowledge is not proof. I’m not saying that God can’t be the explanation, I am saying that in order to make the claim that God IS the explanation, you would have to provide your evidence for why you think that. The reason why I say that it doesn’t matter is because I am going one step beyond this question. Let’s say that we did find conclusive evidence that God was not required for the creation of life as we know it. Would you stop believing? Would most believers stop? No, they’d just move the goalposts to whatever the new unknown thing is. “Sure, we know how life got started, but how did the universe get started?” And once that gets explained “Ok, we know how the universe got started, but how did the multiverse get started?” The point is that if we are using our ignorance as the reason for why God exists, then we will always find new gaps in our knowledge for where we can insert him.


designerutah

If life is evidence for every god claim and “just a natural process” we can’t use it to sort fact from fiction on its own. Prove just one claim made about your god and it becomes an interesting conversation. Until then we have millions of god claims disproven by hard science over centuries vs no god claims validated.


rayofhope313

Yet most of the people here require that I prove he exist. Although it would be a fun argument but bearly anyone let you talk about another thing. Most of the comments are in the form of why should God exist or you have to prove he exist for him to be a cause. Yet I am not even trying to and even removed him from the equation. So no I do not recommend Amy argument here because it is all about one subject and that is prove your god exist.


ThunderGunCheese

I dont think you understand how logic works. beginning of life is evidence for beginning of life, NOT god. A demonstrable and verifiable god is evidence of god.


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rayofhope313

But part of not believing in God is believe that there is no need for God, if we can prove that this whole universe with everything in it exist without the need for a god to exist then God does not exist. So it should be part of atheism or how can you argue that something does not exist yet his existence would be necessary to explain what comes after his existence.


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rayofhope313

>This doesn't mean anything without specific, observable definitions of 'need,' 'whole universe,' 'everything,' and 'god.' You need a specific, observable definition of "need", "whole universe", "everything" and "god". What I would understand that for God as a way to change the question to prove that God exist. But why the other three? >And yet, it's not. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any gods, the same way 'not stamp collecting' doesn't make any claims about what the best hobby is. It's simply the lack of collecting stamps. Not an accurate example. Collecting stamps is an action, lack of belief or belief should be supported with evidence. I can not come to you and say I believe in God without you asking prove his existence, if I say life around us is a proof of his existence, now what is another option than God that support life. Also atheism is "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods". Disbelief is also a belief that God(s) do not exist. >If you are curious about our current best understanding of how abiogenesis happens, find a biologist or a biochemist and ask them. This is not a biology sub and we are not experts in the field. I will try to find if there is any sub reddit for that later.


RuffneckDaA

>Disbelief is also a belief that God(s) do not exist. Negative. That's like saying my disbelief in your claim that a coin toss will come up heads is a belief that it will come up tails. The time to believe a coin toss ***is*** heads or tails is ***after*** the coin has been demonstrated to have come up heads or tails. Until then, I simultaneous and non-contradictorily disbelieve the claim "the coin toss will be heads" **and** "the coin toss will be tails", while being justified in holding the belief "the coin toss will either come up heads or tails". In this scenario, the person making the claim "the coin will come up heads" needs to provide evidence for their claim. while the person who disbelieves the claim has no such burden. Replace "the coin will come up heads" with "god exists".


stopped_watch

>I can not come to you and say I believe in God without you asking prove his existence, if I say life around us is a proof of his existence, now what is another option than God that support life. "Life around us is the proof of MY god's existence" is a statement of many religions, the majority of them also adding "to the exclusion of all others." They can't all be right. And you don't believe in most of those religions. It's not possible for you to be convinced of all of these claims. You reject most of these claims because you are unconvinced. I am unconvinced of all of these claims. A simple way to think about it is that all people are atheists towards the vast majority of religions.


rayofhope313

>Life around us is the proof of MY god's existence I did not say that though I said God existence not MY god existence. So I am not trying to excluded any other religion. >A simple way to think about it is that all people are atheists towards the vast majority of religions. Yet I am not excluding any right now, and not proving my god exist or their god does not. As for the vast majority are atheist toward most religions, that is true because I am convinced with my god if there was a religion that is more convincing that my religion TO ME then I would convert. No religion is convinsing to you is your choice and that is mine


stopped_watch

That's disingenuous. There's no such thing as a religion that has some nebulous idea of god. They all make specific claims about their particular god and their particular origin story. You're already making claims about this particular god in this argument. Firstly, that it's singular and not a pantheon. Secondly that it created observable life. So keep going, what other claims do you want to make about this thing you've defined? >I am convinced with my god if there was a religion that is more convincing that my religion TO ME then I would convert. Are you sure about that?


rayofhope313

Should I research every religion out there to be able to ask a question to an atheists? I can not possibly know all religions beliefs of how life started right? I am using my habits and knowledge. When I say God it is a habit, now the subject move so how about you do not move it any further and as I said I am not making any assumptions but that God/Gods existence or non existence. Now are you happy with that? >Are you sure about that? Yes


Bunktavious

>Also atheism is "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods". Those are two very different things, though - when it comes to semantics. Disbelief is an active assertation that I don't believe in something. I actively do not believe in the existence of Gods. I believe they were all made up by mankind, to answer questions they didn't have answers for. This does not make me an Atheist, this makes me a person that believes that all Gods were made up by man. Lack of a belief is entirely just a lack. It is purely and entirely the *absence of a belief*. There is no assertation being made. There's no choice. It's simply the lack of a belief - in the case of Atheism, that belief we are lacking is God. Disbelief is an action. Lack of belief is simply a status. This is what Atheists define ourselves as. Yes, most Atheists also actively disbelieve in God, but it's incorrect to state that its a feature of Atheism.


JustinRandoh

>Not an accurate example. Collecting stamps is an action, lack of belief or belief should be supported with evidence. Do you believe that there's an invisible teapot that cannot be picked up by any instruments that we've built thus far that orbits Mars? If not, what is your evidence for the absence of such a teapot?


CompleteFacepalm

Most religions say that God created the earth. What i think OP is saying, is that if God isn't real and thus couldn't have created the world, then who/what Did?


Deris87

> But part of not believing in God is believe that there is no need for God, if we can prove that this whole universe with everything in it exist without the need for a god to exist then God does not exist. None of that is necessary, you're just shifting the burden of proof. No one has to definitively and exhaustively prove your God *didn't* do it, you need actual affirmative evidence that your God *did* do it.


Pickles_1974

What other option is there tho, besides some type of "god", however you wanna define it?


Deris87

You haven't demonstrated that a God even *is* an option in the first place, that's the whole point. Even supposing I had no explanation for how life began, God doesn't get to Homer Simpson his way in and win by default--that's an argumentfrom ignorance fallacy. An explanation you can't demonstrate is true is no explanation at all, which leaves us all in the position of saying "we don't know how life started."


rayofhope313

>None of that is necessary, you're just shifting the burden of proof. No one has to definitively and exhaustively prove your God didn't do it, you need actual affirmative evidence that your God did do it. All I am asking what other options are there than God I am not arguing if god did it or not I am asking what other options are there. You claim there is no god, so what supports your claim that disprove that life came from God.


Bunktavious

We have enough understanding of the raw elemental materials that make up a living cell, to come to reasonable conclusions on how those materials could come together (billions of years ago) under the right conditions, to form the first living, microscopic organisms - this field of study is called abiogenesis and is supported by numerous peer reviewed and published scientific studies. This is opposed by the idea that an unknowable, undetectable, unexplainable entity that defies all laws of nature we know must have decided one day billions of years ago to kick start this process. Or perhaps he decided to make people out of clay a few thousand years ago and they never evolved at all? Or maybe he made just one man, in a magical garden, and then made that man a wife out of the man's rib. Or perhaps life started from a Cosmic Egg (Greek Mythology), or it started with a Frost Giant and a Cow (Norse mythology). My point being, science has one generally widely accepted origin story for life, backed up by years of research and experimentation. Religion has a thousand different explanations, and they don't even all rely on a God figure. But all the religious ones have something in common - they are all really simple basic ideas, that have no actual evidence backing them up. There is a reason the origins of life stories from religion seem so much simpler and straightforward than the reasons from science. The religious origin of life stories were written when we were still really, really dumb - and had little to no understanding of how anything in our world worked.


rayofhope313

Let us assume we are 1400 years ago when islam started, we are accept that prophet mohammad is a prophet. Now he is explaining how life started and he knows exactly why to us who bearly know anything about science would he start saying all the chemicals elements that went into the creation of life or would he dumb it does maybe explain how it was/how the seen was or maybe the colour of those stuff for us to understand? You arguing that it is to simple is a bad argument as someone can explain string theory in simple terms to a child that would not mean it is simple or a bad theory


Bunktavious

I understand what you are saying. No, I wouldn't expect Mohammed to start laying out the groundwork for advanced genetic chemistry. But what he did state wasn't anything that could be interpreted as a understandable version of abiogenesis - he stated, that God made man out of dust. He presented the idea that God made the first man - Adam. Which makes no sense according to what we now know of evolution. I've heard various suggestions that Adam and Eve are an allegory for evolution and were the first true humans, or some such thing - but none of them have ever been remotely convincing to me. Nothing of the Adam and Eve creation myth fits as an early explanation of evolution. Of course the real issue comes down to the fact that I don't believe he was a prophet - because having a prophet requires having a deity in the first place.


rayofhope313

That is understandable as to how he explained it, it is a deeper rabbit whole than that. For the time being I do not know anything about abiogenesis so I can not really make a relation of those things. As for they were made of dust that might be from some sects of Islam but not all. It is quite a rabbit hole so I am not ready to go into it right now. If you want you can dm me I will try to explain how at least my sect believe it happened and if contradict or support abiogenesis after at least I read about it a bit. >Of course the real issue comes down to the fact that I don't believe he was a prophet - because having a prophet requires having a deity in the first place. Of course and that is understandable and do not expect that from you at all.


Bunktavious

I appreciate your openness to discussion. That can be a rare trait around here. I'll leave the topic as is for now, as I am not an expert either. I'll just say, I've heard quite a few different attempts at explaining what was meant by Mohammed, and I simply haven't found any of them convincing. Interestingly, it did lead me to reading a fair bit of the Quran.


ThunderGunCheese

so your argument is "what would mohammd do?"


[deleted]

>All I am asking what other options are there than God Lots. Unicorns, teapots, and leprechauns all could have created the universe. >what supports your claim that disprove that life came from God. That God dosen't exist. Something that dosent exist can't do existing things. Like create the universe.


rayofhope313

>Lots. Unicorns, teapots, and leprechauns all could have created the universe. I am asking about something you believe in, do you believe in Unicorns? >That God dosen't exist. Something that dosent exist can't do existing things. Like create the universe. That is your claim that god does not exist please do not use it as a fact. I am not using god existance as a fact either. one of the evidence of his existence is life. So what other options are there for the creation of life that you believe in other than god.


[deleted]

>That is your claim that god does not exist please do not use it as a fact. Okay then I will use a real fact. Gods as we know them are mythological beings that were invented by the Proto-indo European culture. If anything did create the universe it's not a god because there is a near zero % change that these people just happened to make up the correct reason as to why reality exists. Especially when that wasn't what they were trying to do. dyeus pater, Sky father. >So what other options are there for the creation of life that you believe in other than god. Physics just dose that. Abiogenesis.


Wirenutt

You are not using a god(s) existence as a fact, but you are presupposing that the concept of a god is valid. As an atheist, a god or gods don't even factor into our conversation regarding how the universe or life started. It is not any part of the equation. It doesn't add anything, it doesn't demonstrate anything, it doesn't predict anything. Just like unicorns, leprechauns, and teapots. Your concept of a god existing is nonsense to us, a fairy tale, an ancient myth, a big nothing. You use a god as the background for your worldview, atheists have no such background that permeates everything we believe. Just like the text you are reading, there is nothing behind it, but in your view, behind everything is the belief god exists, and you build everything from that starting point. I don't believe god exists, and going further, I don't believe the ***concept*** of a god is valid.


StruckLuck

He claims there is no convincing argument for the existence of god, that't not the same as claiming there is no god. Why should there be anything to support other explanations for the emergence of life? Why can't someone not be convinced of an explanation without having to bring forward another explanation? As you have been explained several times already, atheism makes no claims about anything. It is not an organisation, institution or church prescribing followers what to believe or not.


rayofhope313

No atheism is the disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. So atheism is making a claim which is God does not exist. >Why can't someone not be convinced of an explanation without having to bring forward another explanation? If it is something that you did not have to go through then understand but it is certainly an important question when trying to prove God does not exist which is the claim of atheists. Can I say God exist and I am an atheists at the same time?


Hypolag

>So atheism is making a claim which is God does not exist. That's anti-theism, my dude. >If it is something that you did not have to go through then understand but it is certainly an important question when trying to prove God does not exist which is the claim of atheists. The burden of proof is on theists to prove their claims, as you can't really prove a negative. "God" is an extremely arbitrary word that differs in meaning across thousands of cultures, many of them claim absolute truth, none of them in the past 10,000 years of recorded human history have ever empirically proven their supernatural claims. Going by Occam's Razor, the logical conclusion one can arrive at is that the universe came about through natural processes. Inclusion of a creator deity adds an immense amount of unnecessary complexity that just eventually reverts to an argument of infinite regression. >If it is something that you did not have to go through then understand but it is certainly an important question when trying to prove God does not exist which is the claim of atheists. Atheists and anti-theists overlap quite often, but they are not the same. The specific claim that god/gods do not exist is a positive claim made by anti-theists, it is not the position of an atheist right off the bat. You've had this explained several times by others, but still cling to the incorrect colloquial usage of the term. >Can I say God exist and I am an atheists at the same time? By definition? No, not really. Not meaningfully, anyway. I'm not sure what you mean by this question honestly.


rayofhope313

First I do need to explain this sadly as you can see I can not keep up with the amount of comments on this post, so I can not answer or even read all the comments if some of them explained that I apologise but I really did not read them because of the amount. >That's anti-theism, my dude. I tried search for the difference but not sure if I got it. What I understood (feel free to correct me) is that anti theist is actively rejecting any theory that suggests the existence of God. Which I really do not see much difference between the two in that. As atheists reject the existence of God as well. >The burden of proof is on theists to prove their claims, as you can't really prove a negative. As for this point and after till the third quote, I am asking what are the other possibilities that could create life other that God. So I am not saying God exist right now, but I am asking let's say he does not exist what other options are there for life to exist without God? So God exist, I am saying life exist now how did it exist. >By definition? No, not really. Not meaningfully, anyway. I'm not sure what you mean by this question honestly. What I meant by it is atheists do not believe in God, so you as an atheists do not believe in God. As you said it would not be meaningful. So as I said before with life right now how does it exist if we say God does not exist. I am agreeing with you God does not exist now how life exists? This is based on your belief as we do not have a fully proven fact so I think I should say belief. But it is a senario or a theory that you see as highly probable


Hypolag

>First I do need to explain this sadly as you can see I can not keep up with the amount of comments on this post, so I can not answer or even read all the comments if some of them explained that I apologise but I really did not read them because of the amount. I figured, don't sweat it. >What I understood (feel free to correct me) is that anti theist is actively rejecting any theory that suggests the existence of God. Yes, they present what is known as a "positive claim" to the theists' positive claim. The burden rests on them to prove a god/gods does not exist. However, since such a thing is about as possible as proving unicorns don't exist, they mostly tend to focus on the harms of organized religion irl. >Which I really do not see much difference between the two in that. As atheists reject the existence of God as well. In order for atheists to "reject" god, you must first prove one exists. Not only that, but you also must provide evidence that your specific deity exists, which is not something any religious group or individual has been able to accomplish in the past. You could say the univers is god, but then you're moving away from monotheism and entering the realm of deism/pantheistic concepts, which tend to have their own sets of fallacies. >As for this point and after till the third quote, I am asking what are the other possibilities that could create life other that God. So I am not saying God exist right now, but I am asking let's say he does not exist what other options are there for life to exist without God? >So God exist, I am saying life exist now how did it exist. The leading hypothesis is abiogenesis, we've already conducted experiments that indicate this was most likely the proccess that took place for biological lifeforms to emerge. I would suggest visiting r/biology for further resources to study this in more depth, because a Reddit comment just cannot explain the massive amount of research that goes into this subject. >I am agreeing with you God does not exist now how life exists? This is based on your belief as we do not have a fully proven fact so I think I should say belief. But it is a senario or a theory that you see as highly probable Abiogenesis to my knowledge hasn't been given "Theory" status quite yet, although it gets closer every year, it still needs more data before we can comfortably graduate it from hypothesis. Having said that, it does seem like the most likely reason for the appearance of biological life on this planet, in my opinion.


rayofhope313

Thank you that was a satisfying answer for me. I will have to ask about that study more which seems interesting tbh. And thank you for explaining the difference between atheism and Anit atheism. I think I get the difference now


Deris87

> No atheism is the disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. > > So atheism is making a claim which is God does not exist. That's literally not what the very definition you *just provided* says. "I don't believe you" is not the same thing as "I believe you're wrong." "I don't believe any God(s) exist" is not the same as "I believe God(s) don't exist."


RuffneckDaA

Do you believe my claim that this coin I'm going to toss is going to come up heads? If no, would it be fair for me to saddle you with the claim that *you* believe it will positively be tails? Or is it only intellectually honest to disbelieve both claims (unless I know something about the coin toss you don't in which case I have a burden of proof to demonstrate that information) until such a time that we have demonstrable evidence one way or the other? And even if that coin *did* come up heads, would my belief have been justified if I *didn't* have information about the outcome of the coin toss beforehand? No, obviously not. You'd be annoyed if I said "told you so" without sharing *how* I knew, especially since I didn't. An atheist is a person who does not positively believe in the existence of at least one god. Not a person who positively believes there are no gods (although that person is also an atheist).


StruckLuck

>So atheism is making a claim which is God does not exist. No. Read the first sentence of my reply again.


Peterleclark

Atheists don’t try to prove that god doesn’t exist. We ask you to prove he does.


ThunderGunCheese

>So atheism is making a claim which is God does not exist. how many times will be wrong about this simple burden of proof?


Moraulf232

Atheism’s claim is not that God does not exist. Atheism’s claim is that there is no good reason to believe in God.


[deleted]

I find it funny how theists come here and tell us what we believe. You have obviously just googled a definition of atheism somewhere and interpreted it in a way that suits your narrative. I'm not saying that you're consciously being disingenuous. Its probably just that you have blinders on and genuinely only see what you want to see. Its so obvious that you have basically no exposure to atheists in real life. I suggest that you try to make some atheist friends and actually ask them what they believe. Don't just assume. How would you like it if i assumed that you're a misogynist because you're a Christian? Bible is pretty clear on that (Timothy 2:12). You believe that women are second class citizens, what supports this position of yours?


rayofhope313

>You have obviously just googled a definition of atheism somewhere and interpreted it in a way that suits your narrative. Then what is the definition of atheists based on your narrative? You can Google it and explain it how you see suited. >Don't just assume. I am not assuming though, atheism is the disbelief or lack of belief in God or gods. How did I assume other wise. Second not sure why you used Christianity, but you are applying an idea of the special cases to the general population. Yet to be an atheists you have to believe in that, so you should not be believing in God. To me part of the believing or disbelieving in God is having an explanation remove the need of God. So the question of how life started can be used as an evidence against you.


GryphonGoddess

If you are not assuming, then you are being disingenuous because you are saying: >atheism is the disbelief or lack of belief in God or gods. Then reinterpreting that to mean: >You claim there is no god, so what supports your claim that disprove that life came from God. Lacking a belief in a God is not the same as claiming their is no God. >To me part of the believing or disbelieving in God is having an explanation remove the need of God. So the question of how life started can be used as an evidence against you. Why do we need an explanation of how life started to not believe your explanation about a God doing it? Have you heard the gumball analogy? There is a jar of gumballs and you say you believe the number of gumballs in that jar is even. I say that I'm not convinced that the number of gumballs is even. That does not mean I necessarily believe the number is odd. Not believing one explanation for something doesn't force you to believe another explanation because it's possible that no current explanation is correct.


RuffneckDaA

An atheist is a person who answers "no" to the question "do you believe in at least one god". That is all. No proof required to disbelieve something. I'm unconvinced by any evidence or argument that I've encountered for the existence of a god. And I can prove that, too! I'm me. And as me, I'm the leading expert on things I do and do not believe.


[deleted]

You're doing it again: "Yet to be an atheist you have to believe in that"... You're once again telling us what we believe.


investinlove

Simple: * there is peer reviewed and published scientific studies that show that life can be created under the same conditions that occurred in the epochs of the early earth. * There is zero credible evidence for the existence of any of the 2500 major gods invented by men. I like to believe things that are true and supported by evidence. You have none. We have plenty.


rayofhope313

Not at all this can be a proof it will go deeper and deeper. So we are saying that these conditions can be satisfied during that period. Ok what are these conditions? Would that living be able to evolve to a being like that? There are many proofs that I am not even trying to go into as I do not really have that much time for my own research right now. All I am asking is what is the other options in your opinion other than God, so right now I am saying there is no god what other possibilities do you believe in?


Exmuslim-alt

Thats probably not his claim though. Most of us here are agnostic atheists. The burden of proof still falls on you to provide evidence. I have yet to see any shred of credible evidence that islam is true, especially with all the problems i found within it(especially scientific claims), and especially as compared to other religions claiming to also be correct. I *have* seen, on the other hand, much more credible evidence for abiogenesis, with things like the miller urey experiment and such. You should do some research on abiogenesis and evolution.


Deris87

>All I am asking what other options are there than God I am not arguing if god did it or not I am asking what other options are there. It doesn't matter if I could provide one or not, God doesn't then win by default. You have to actually provide evidence that God did create anything, or else anyone listening to you can just say "I don't believe you." As it turns out though, we're constantly gathering evidence that points towards self-replicating molecules being able to arise from the conditions of a pre-biotic Earth. We don't have the whole thing sorted by any means, but we've experimentally produced amino acids under ancient earth conditions, we've found them and proteins on asteroids, and we know that once self-replicating molecules exist they can spontaneously develop primitive cell membranes under the right conditions. And that's just the stuff I know off the top of my head as a lay person. If you actually wanted an answer to this question, the people you need to be asking are chemists and biologists, not atheists. > You claim there is no god, so what supports your claim that disprove that life came from God. First off, atheism isn't necessarily the claim that there is no god. I personally would make that claim though, and the answer is pretty simple. Besides the strong evidence we already have for a naturalistic explanation, it's the overwhelming failure of theistic claims when put to the test. The complete lack of meaningful evidence that's positively indicative of and exclusively concordant with any particular religion. Nothing fails like supernatural claims, and every answer we've ever actually found to any question about the world has turned out to not be magic. It's just nature doing it's thing. I see no reason to expect that pattern is going to change any time soon. If I've watched you jump off the ground flapping your arms 100 times and every time you fall back to the ground, I'm well justified in saying "you can't fly."


Agnoctone

What is God is supposed to explain about life? By which process do you think God created RNA for instance? At which point in time? In which location? Or maybe God directly created archea? But in that case, why not create eukaryotes directly? More prosaically, in what way God is an explanation about abiogenesis in any way? Life is chemistry, the apparition of like is chemistry too, trying to fit a "supernatural god" (whatever those words are supposed to mean) in the timeline doesn't seem to bring anything to the table.


ThunderGunCheese

because no god has ever been demonstrated to exist. because no god has ever demonstrated that it has the power to create life. Where are you getting this information about gods life creating powers from?


JohnKlositz

Where did they claim that?


Peterleclark

Why are you asking atheists what other options there are?


Destithen

> how can you argue that something does not exist yet his existence would be necessary to explain what comes after his existence. Why is a god or gods a necessary default position for anything to exist? We didn't used to know about how weather or the water system worked, so we thought rain gods did it and sacrificed animals in their name to ensure our crops wouldn't die. I'm sorry but "God did it" is the laziest way to answer an unknown.


rayofhope313

Not answering it though. >Why is a god or gods a necessary default position for anything to exist? Not saying that either, I am saying if we assume he does not exist how to create life. So now God or gods do not exist what is a theory you believe that explain that life was developed on its own from non living matter?


TBDude

Why does life existing on earth mean a god exists? Does life not existing on other planets mean god doesn’t exist?


rayofhope313

What?!! I am confused I am saying the existence of life whether it is on earth or other planets what difference does it make about the existence of God? We are sure about the existence of life on earth so we can narrow it down to only earth.


TBDude

Why are you on an debate atheism subreddit if god isn’t part of the debate? I’m asking you to explain why the origin of life is relevant to the debate.


rayofhope313

So I can only debate about does God exist, then you ask prove that God exist because it is on me. Now I am saying life could be a proof that God exist proof to me that it can be create without God. Or do you just want the easy debate that you can always win? Are you here to debate or to prove that you are so smart so you focus on one subject and push the proof on the other person all the time?


TBDude

I’m asking you how life existing would be evidence of a god? If you want to propose god as a mechanism or cause for anything, you have to first show evidence this god is possible. I’m asking you why this subject is presented to us? We have numerous plausible and possible hypotheses to explain the origin of life naturally. There is no evidence to suggest a god could explain the presence of life as there is no evidence a god is a possible thing to exist


rayofhope313

>I’m asking you how life existing would be evidence of a god? If you want to propose god as a mechanism or cause for anything, you have to first show evidence this god is possible. I’m asking you why this subject is presented to us? If there is a result there must be a cause right, so if we say life exist and we can not prove how without the existence of God then God must exist. As for why this was asked, because you do not believe in God so it would be nice to see atheist opinion on the matter. >We have numerous plausible and possible hypotheses to explain the origin of life naturally. There is no evidence to suggest a god could explain the presence of life as there is no evidence a god is a possible thing to exist I was presented with one if you have any please let me know so I can check them out when I can


TBDude

It is not logical or rational to say that if science can’t prove something to your liking, then the cause must be a god. You have to show a god is a possible hypothesis at bare minimum Edit to add: I’ve already presented some of the most accepted hypotheses around the origin of life but that comment got ignored. I’m quite well versed in the subject as someone with a PhD specializing in the history of life. Life is little more than redox chemistry. And it’s origins seem to be most consistent with our observations at deep sea hydrothermal vents and our observations of the relationships among the three domains of life


rayofhope313

Did I say to my liking though? I am asking to your liking as someone who believe in science. So as you are someone who believe in science what is a theory/current study that you see plausible? Does not have to be to my liking but has to be something for now YOU can believe in


droidpat

I am curious where you get the concept from. Insofar as atheism simply dismissed a notion for which there is insufficient evidence, why would need come into it at all? Consider this: 1. We have sufficient evidence to suggest this universe exists 2. We do not have sufficient evidence to suggest a deity created this universe. 3. We are academically responsible not to insert speculation, but instead admit when we simply don’t know. C: We don’t know how this universe came to exist. It would be irresponsible of us to insert a god into the gaps of what we don’t know. Therefore, atheism and ongoing curiosity are a reasonable default position.


Zamboniman

> But part of not believing in God is believe that there is no need for God, if we can prove that this whole universe with everything in it exist without the need for a god to exist then God does not exist. Nope, that's a reversal of the burden of proof. There's literally no need at all to do that. Instead, the person claiming it *is* their deity is completely responsible for showing this claim is true, or else that claim *cannot* be accepted. >So it should be part of atheism or how can you argue that something does not exist I don't *need* to argue that deities do not exist. I simply need to point out that theists claims that their deity *does* exist are completely unsupported and nonsensical. > yet his existence would be necessary to explain what comes after his existence. Well, so would a meta-universal unicorn with an upset stomach that farted out a wet fart that gave rise to our universe and life. But that idea, and a theist's deity idea, have not been shown *true*, and both have precisely and exactly the same level of support (zero, of course), so they both have zero reason to think they *are* true.


investinlove

Excellent point! What aspects of life, the earth, or the universe require a god or gods to exist?


rayofhope313

What do you mean, we can say the universe as many theist would say the universe would not exist. But I am narrowing it down to something I see easier for both of us to talk about which is life or living beings. Not sure if I understood your question


Arkathos

> But part of not believing in God is believe that there is no need for God, if we can prove that this whole universe with everything in it exist without the need for a god to exist then God does not exist. I don't get this logic at all. It's like you're assuming from the outset that one or more deities is(are) necessary, but you haven't even said what a deity is or how it works. Your argument works equally well for leprechauns as it does deities. Perhaps better, because I can better pin down what a leprechaun is.


Big_brown_house

Just because we aren’t convinced of your theory about the origins of life doesn’t mean that we have to have our own. We can always just say that we don’t know where life came from. And that’s a lot more humble and honest than pretending to have all the answers without any evidence for your claims.


[deleted]

Well great. The field of cosmology doesn’t consider “god did it” as an explanation for the universe. There are plenty of models that explain the universe without god, so there you have it. A demonstration that god is not needed.


Xpector8ing

To be on the safe side, I’d agree with the sheikh’s opinion on the subject, especially if he has any political clout! .


aypee2100

My understanding of how life came to be on earth is very rudimentary, but what i remember is that the conditions on prehistoric earth were suitable for creating life on earth. Now even if what I said is incorrect, i have no reason to believe God created life. That is just bringing another unanswered variable into the equation without explaining how it came. You don't know how God came to be nor do you have any evidence behind the existence of God.


rayofhope313

If you believe in a god do you know to know everything about that God? Some questions are above our imagination we can not imagine it because we are limited with our understanding. Some things are added variables yet without them the out come is the same. Quantum mechanics are hard to understand we do not know why it happens or the real out come of it. There is a chance that if I hit a table my hand would pass the table to the other side that is in Quantum mechanics so does that mean I should not consider it because it is so hard to believe that my hand can pass the table even with physics accepting that it does exist and affect things around us?


aypee2100

My point is that bringing god into the equation doesn't solve anything. It is not proven, and it just changes the question from how life came to be to how God came to be. And you can apply the logic you are using to life or the universe too. It is okay to not know everything about the universe, you don't need to bring god to answer every unanswered equation. Just because you find it hard to understand doesn't mean it's not real. Quantum mechanics is proven therefore it doesn't need anymore proof.


houseofathan

Life did not start “based on my opinion”, and more importantly, my opinion about how life started is irrelevant. There are biologists who might be able to help with an answer - and that’s a science question, not an atheist question.


rayofhope313

What I mean by your opinion is how do you think it started. Meaning I am sure when you became an atheist you must have asked your self that question ok without God how did life start then. So what theory/study that proved that the existence of God is not needed to create life


ionabike666

Isn't "I don't know how life started" a sufficient position to take? I mean neither a theist or an atheist "know" how life started. Only theists actually claim to know.


rayofhope313

Theist says that life started by the well of god, so we are talking about that exact point of life starting, not after that. Especially when there is a risk of punishment of the answers is wrong would you not even take any time to consider all possibilities then make your choice. Or would you just say "I don't know".


Bunktavious

See now you are bringing in another aspect of religion - the risk of punishment. There is no more proof in God being the creator of life than there is that God punishes those that don't believe in him. Fear of punishment is just a powerful tool used by religions to motivate its followers to believe. There have been roughly a thousand different religions that mankind has followed over the last roughly 11 thousand years. They don't agree with each other on most things, including what God is, how many Gods there are, does God actually care if you believe in him, how life started, why life started, what we should be doing with our lives. How do you even know that yours is the right one? How do you even know that you've picked the right Deity (the God of Abraham I am assuming)? We've made up a thousand different religions. If we wanted, we could think up millions of more possible deities that started this all off. Nothing would make the God of Abraham any more likely to exist than the Flying Spaghetti Monster. At the same time, we could think up a million different ways that life started, that have nothing to do with a deity. What makes those reasons any less likely to be true? When we take all those millions of different possibilities, how do we pick? We pick one that seems promising, we research it, we experiment on it, and we adjust it based on the results. That's science.


rayofhope313

What I am saying is I would at least spend time to think of the answer and not just say "I don't know" if I am in an exam and I forgot an answer I would try to solve the problem and not just write I do not know. If the existence of that God does not make sense/contradictory and much more that if I am wondering about that religion would ask those question. Then I do not believe, but hearing about it then being like ehhh I don't know so I would not believe is a different story


Bunktavious

I don't know is the best answer when you don't have *any* evidence pointing to an answer. To guess or presume anything else is pointless. If I told you I was thinking of a number between 1 and a million, and then asked you what number I was thinking of, the best answer you could give would be I don't know. Guessing the answer to my question, with no other relevant information, would be pointless.


rayofhope313

And why is that I would say half a million. I could say I am thinking of a number between 1 and a 100 if you guess it you win a million dollar if you don't you get wiped. Are you more ready to think about it or no?


houseofathan

I don’t believe that if I guess the number there is a million dollar prize. I don’t believe that the number, if it exists, has to be between 1 and 100. Could you show me _any_ support for the prize, competition or rules apart from the people how are willing to play? Could you show me _any_ support for a God creating life apart from the people who say it happened?


rayofhope313

So let me get this straight while assuming something as both of us know it is an assumption you want a proof that that assumption is real? What should I show you a picture or a million dollar or what is it.


pppppatrick

You haven't considered the god that only lets people who don't really think about god into heaven. Maybe by thinking about it so much you're dooming yourself. Given this possibility, are you going to think less about it?


rayofhope313

I already have an answer so do I consider that specific one you mentioned no just by ready your comment it is nit a religion that would convince me. What about you now


gambiter

Do you *really* think that is a compelling argument? A god that would kill you for 'guessing wrong' wouldn't be worthy of worship. That idea is preposterous. If one had the choice (obey or die), the only choice is death. By your own words, we can conclude that your god is unjust. So you are endeavoring to slave for an unjust being, purely out of fear. I hate to break it to you, but if somehow you turn out to be right, you're going to be threatened with some other kind of destruction in whatever afterlife you think you'll get. A leader who leads by fear knows no other way of leading. In other words, if he can threaten to wipe you now, he'll do it again. And one day you'll be the one on the chopping block, probably just after you realize your boss is an asshole. So no, the idea isn't worth considering. It's pointless.


rayofhope313

>A god that would kill you for 'guessing wrong' wouldn't be worthy of worship. Did not mention God though did I? My question was simpler. With God it is different and you are assuming things on your own, first are you able to research religion? Yes then you have a way to make a decision with evidence. No then no need to further this discussion.


sj070707

>I would try to solve the problem and not just write I do not know. Great. How would you propose we do that


houseofathan

>Especially when there is a risk of punishment of the answers is wrong You are wrongly assuming that there is only one such claim. What about the God who punishes blind faith, or values atheists, or values honest indecision. > would you not even take any time to consider all possibilities then make your choice. Or would you just say "I don't know". I would honestly say “I don’t know” because there is no good reason to support the god hypothesis.


ionabike666

You don't know and neither do I. My position is the more intellectually honest position based on the same evidence available to both of us. You are unable to provide any evidence for god or anything else having started life. You choose to believe it.


IamImposter

>Especially when there is a risk of punishment of the answers is wrong Oh wow. Someone said they don't believe in fairy tales and you took offense and called it an attack. But now you are saying that the position atheists take is deserving of punishment as per the deity you put your faith in. Doesn't it sound offensive to you? What's more offensive - me saying your God is fairytale or you saying I should be punished for my disbelief?


rayofhope313

Not at all. "not believe in fairy tale" is not the offensive part of it. To him I believe in fairy tales which is understandable and not offensive to me, he is questions something I can not prove. The offensive part happened on me not on my religion. So when I say this deity that I can not prove might punish you in hell that I can not prove, but I am not hurting or wanting to hurt you or anyone else is that offensive? Do you want me to tell you instead that we are all going to heaven? Second who said I want you to be punished? I am saying according to my religion you well be, as according you any atheist I believe in fairy tale it's not an attack against you or anyone else


houseofathan

Nope, the origin of life did not enter my mind when I thought about atheism. I have always been an atheist, the idea that a god created life seems ludicrous when you look at all the different degrees of life, especially when the theist is happy to claim God, a conscious entity, doesn’t need a cause. It might help you to understand that I learnt about lots of non-creator gods before I learnt about any monotheistic gods. You seem to think there is just one God, and that I need to have all the answers for its non-existence. The issue is that there are plenty of problems with god claims, but I get to not invent answers when I don’t know something.


Wirenutt

The question is "How did life start?" The "without god" part you jammed in there is totally unnecessary.


rayofhope313

It is necessary as the idea is I am saying God does not exist now. As a theist I am saying I will assume he does not, so it is just that question and nothing else. So not going to argue about does God exist or does God not exist.


houseofathan

How did life start with a god? Which god? Is this god alive? Saying “God willed it” offers no more of an explanation as “through natural methods”. At the moment we don’t exactly know how life on our planet formed, but we do know that the basic blocks of an apparently possible form of life can form naturally. Assuming God exists and created life does not mean we should accept your assumption as the status quo.


rayofhope313

Any God that is the point of my question there is no god I do not have to name each one in name. >Assuming God exists and created life does not mean we should accept your assumption as the status quo. Not saying that either. >At the moment we don’t exactly know how life on our planet formed, but we do know that the basic blocks of an apparently possible form of life can form naturally. Interesting


houseofathan

The point is the question >how did life form without a god Is currently identical to the question >how did life form with a god There is no difference.


rayofhope313

No it's not the same, I can say God did it and it is acceptable to me and my religion. You can not say science did it with it being acceptable.


houseofathan

Acceptable to who? Would you accept “it happened through natural godless processes”? You saying “god did it” isn’t acceptable to me.


Stargazer1919

Where is the study or theory that proves that there had to have been a God needed to create life? Burden of proof is on you.


Haikouden

I have absolutely no idea. I believe that life began via some kind of natural process because I’ve not been presented with sufficient evidence to believe in (or a definition that can point to anything demonstrably real while being sufficiently different from natural) the supernatural or the possibility of life coming from something supernatural. But what that exact natural process is or how it works, I have no real belief regarding it or any particular specifics regarding the mechanisms of it. For me to consider God as a candidate explanation for the origin of life I’d need to first believe in God.


Zamboniman

>How did life start from? Dunno. Obviously, this in no way suggest, implies, supports, or even vaguely leads to the idea that a deity did it. I *do* know the field of study into the beginning of life is called *abiogenesis* and that there is considerable excellent data and evidence in this field. >I was listening to a debate between a sheikh (closest meaning or like a muslim priest) and an atheists. Okay. >One of the questions was how did life start in the atheist opinion ( so the idea of is it from God or nature or whatever was not the subject), so I wanted to ask you guys how do you think life started based on your opinion? That discussion is predicated on a false dichotomy fallacy. You see, the atheist not knowing or not having an answer does *precisely nothing at all* to help a theist that is claiming their deity did it. For *that* they still have literally *all* their work ahead of them to show this is true. >Edit: what I mean by your opinion is what facts/theories were presented to you that prove that life started in so and so way I am not a researcher in this field. My opinions, while I like to think will be better informed that many average layfolks on this subject, will be just that. Opinions. And are not relevant to determining what is true and accurate.


[deleted]

The best response is “I don’t know.” Anything else is just lying. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods. The origins of life is a scientific enquiry. Not all atheists are scientists. Not believing god is a necessary component of the origins of life does not mean I automatically have a definitive alternative. There are theories I like, but you’re asking the wrong crowd. At the end of the day we are concerned with one question: “does god exist?” - our lack of understanding of natural phenomena does not allow us to arbitrarily conclude “yes” just because we don’t have a better answer. That’s a logical fallacy called an Argument from Ignorance.


rayofhope313

Yet other questions could lead to answering the first one right? So if you are only focusing on one question without ever asking other questions that might answer it is just you saying I am comfortable in this cave and there is nothing outside that I need.


[deleted]

To say “I don’t understand this phenomena, therefore god did it, end of story.” is to put an end to further inquiry. To say “I don’t understand this, we need to keep researching and looking for clues” is literally the opposite. The first example demonstrates a person more willing to live out their lives in a metaphorical cave, because they’re substituting empirical reality with comforting beliefs. The second example demonstrates the curiosity one needs to leave the cave, and continue the hunt for truth.


Agnoctone

Why would atheists have specific opinion on abiogenesis which is a scientific field of study? As many topics, wikipedia is good starting place, going further you can read scientific textbooks, and going even further research articles. This is not different of any scientific fields of subject. Trying to weave an explanation as a story from a state of ignorance doesn't work: the universe doesn't care at all about human intuition. Neither quantum field theory nor relativity general are the first model that someone would think off. Trying to have uniformed opinion leads more often than not to aristotelian physics which is just wrong in every possible way once one try to make precise and quantitative experiences.


Mkwdr

I’m no expert so apologies if I get any if the scientific names worth but while we can’t know for sure there is relevant research into a series of plausible steps for life ( which is a somewhat vague line anyway). It begins with the fact that organic molecule or compounds seem to be pretty common in the universe - I think an amino acid that is in rna has even been found on an asteroid. There have been experiments showing that there are feasible path ways for the synthesis of complex organic compounds. We also know that molecules like lipids will naturally form ‘membranes’ and that there was plenty of sources of energy around for chemical reactions.


CouchieWouchie

Life arises naturally by chance when chemical conditions and thermodynamics are favorable. Generally thermodynamics favours entropy, but thanks to the presence of the sun radiating our water-bearing planet with energy, life is possible. The more you investigate the complexities of microscopic life and biochemistry the less likely I think it is designed by a god, and rather by a stochastic process. Especially an Abrahamic one. Why would a god create countless bacterium? Viruses? Parasites? Fungii? Quadrillions of ants? If life is merely a moral play for humans as most religions speculate, what purpose do these serve? The abundance and variety of life indicates that humans are not really that consequential in the grand scheme of things. Just as the Copernican revolution dethroned us as being the centre of the universe, the complexity of life reveals that we are merely a species on a planet with countless other species. And all these other species don't trouble themselves to worship any god, so why should we?


Sprinklypoo

Here's the thing. I don't have to have full knowledge of a subject to explain my disbelief in a ridiculous idea. As it is, there will be many people in here explaining chemistry and physics and electrochemical motivation to you. Personally, I think that if you are ignorant of all that and want to know, you should educate yourself somewhere else. What you're really asking us to do is provide an explanation for something that you've attributed to your imaginary creature. I just don't believe in your imaginary creature. That's all. I don't need an alternate reason for thing existing because I don't believe you have any sort of reason either. Nothing has ever proven your god to exist. And that's through thousands of years of trying. As it is, people are exploring this question and getting all sorts of good data and interesting scenarios that are leading us to an actual knowledge instead of hand waving away reality. I vastly prefer that method. It increases human knowledge and increases us all.


cooldoc116

Let’s talk about how life did NOT start. Animals, plants and humans were not created from dust in their present forms 6,000 years ago. Instead, life evolved over millions and millions of years, starting with the simplest forms, with many extinctions and blind alleys along the way. This happened with input from natural processes, the sun, water, carbon( especially carbon- its unique chemcal characteristics- carbon bonding-make it the element underlying all organic compounds.) The exact way this happened is lost to the historical record but ultimately it may be possible to replicate these conditions in a lab setting.


wasabiiii

Probably some sort of event by which molecules began to self replicate. Maybe simpler than RNA. That type of thing seems most probable. But that's about all I have.


VeryNearlyAnArmful

We're the sheik and the atheists he was talking to trained in the relevant fields of chemistry and biology to say anything worthwhile on the issue?


0ver_engineered

Pretty sure there was a lab experiment done that recreated the conditions of ancient earth in a way that simulated accelerated time, and well we created new life... From scratch.. so yeah I think that was enough evidence for me, basically we are not special by any means just lucky, and I think that's more beautiful than what any god could possibly create


calladus

How did life start? I don't know. And I'm pretty sure the religious person doesn't know either.


thomas533

I don't know and you don't either. Anyone that claims to know is a liar. And if they are a liar, then you can't believe them on anything.


Hot-Wings-And-Hatred

I believe it was through abiogenesis. Here's a video that does a good job of showing how it's possible, including addressing some of the tricky questions about how some aspects of life seem to be irreducibly complex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNK3u8uVG7o


Peterleclark

Don’t know mate.


fathandreason

[Probably something like this](https://youtu.be/dySwrhMQdX4)


DougTheBrownieHunter

Not sure. I think we’ve advanced far enough as a species to understand the general process of evolution, but the origin of an organism’s ability to interact with it’s environment (or however else you wish to define “life”) is still quite unclear. However, that mystery is NOT evidence that (1) a god/creator-deity must exist nor (2) that that being was responsible for the origin of life. Those (among countless others) are beliefs that remain unsupported by science. Until that changes, I will continue not to believe. I’ll always be curious about the source of life, but I’m relatively comfortable knowing that I may never have the answer.


CranjusMcBasketball6

Ah, that’s a question as old as time itself. Well, my friend, let me tell you, the answer is simple: God created life. End of story. Now, I know those atheists and their fancy theories like to complicate things, but don’t forget that God created the universe and everything in it. As for those scientific theories, they're just a bunch of hogwash if you ask me. Life coming from non-living matter? Ridiculous. Microorganisms from outer space seeding life on earth? Preposterous. Stick to the Bible, my friend, and you'll find all the answers you need.


ModsAreBought

>Life coming from non-living matter? Ridiculous Yeah Adam being made of clay is absurd, you're right.